Photographer Ripping You Off? LICENSING EXPLAINED - YouTube

Is your photographer trying to rip you off today we talk about licensing

All right, so you've commissioned this shoot, and now your photographer wants to wants more money

What's the deal? Are they trying to rip you off?

Recently I photographed a home for an interior designer and the art. They used came from a gallery and that gallery

Contacted me and they wanted to use the photos for the marketing, but when I asked for stock usage fee. They sort of freaked out

They said you know we work with over 200

designers and our you are the only photographer who has ever asked us for to buy photos and since you are already paid by the

designer

to produce the photos

I'm curious as to why you would not want the additional marketing for your work to our broad client list of art buyers and designers

sounds great a

good question

You know if the interior designer already paid for the images. Why would I why?

Wouldn't I want free marketing? Why would I ask to be paid again?

So here's my response right I?

said

It's interesting to hear that

other photographers are not licensing their work and like artists most photographers are not legally or business savvy and

They don't know

really their own Worth and a photography is like any other creative intellectual property and

subject to the same contract protections

And if I were to write a book and get it published once then someone wants to publish it again

That writer would charge you no additional licensing

But are--for reprints if a musician writes a song and they sell one how them then a car commercial wants to use it

the musician with in charge additional licensing and the same with software companies

They produce a program just to license out copies

They never sell their IP unless it's for a ton of money in digital photography is the same I

Get paid for a commission and the client wall at some point though

They will get initial usage, but any additional copies

Will be licensed out for use

So why so what why is this?

Why don't I just charge one fee, and then do the work and then everybody can use it for free?

Number one, it's not it's not fair to the person who paid for the licensing for the Commission shoot

number two

if my client doesn't want anyone else to use the photos they will they will pay a buyout fee and

that buyout fee is

enough to make up for any potential loss of income from additional licensing, so

So in in essence, I'm saving my clients money. I'm a amortizing the cost of that photo shoot out a little bit

so

But, but why wouldn't I want to let you use the work?

Isn't isn't in free marketing for you. They said you know well it depends

this is the benefit the same to you as it is for me if you're a business and

Wanting to use my work to market your business

Perhaps it's not a direct return on investment, but having high quality photography on your site builds trust with your clients

And they feel more comfortable buying from you, right

So there's a value there right? I'm providing value to your business and of course

I appreciate any free advertising I receive, but that should be in addition to the proper or licensing not instead of and

Regarding free marketing if an artist sells a piece of Arts

They have their name on it already right if you buy a Gucci handbag

They have their name on it a Nike shoe Lululemon pants

Whatever, it's got the name on it, and if I saw a copy of my work

I would expect the same to have my name on it. It's not out of the ordinary

It's kind of expected so I have to weigh the difference between the value and brain to you and the value you're bringing to me

and

If the marketing from your site is not worth it to me

then I will ask in you know the difference to be made up in a dollar amount so I

Prepared I prepared a graph

so

Here here you see that

If the value on providing you is this an eval you're providing to me as this then I will ask

For that kind of in exchange, but you know I have to leave you room for a healthy profit so of course

It's not exactly the same

I'm not gonna ask for that much, but it's not gonna be free right

so

But why would I want to be paid again if I was already paid once isn't that kind of greedy?

So that's really the difference between

custom versus off-the-shelf a

commission versus stock if I make something custom for a client they will

They will pay special attention. I devote to their project but

Afterwards I now own the copies of that work and which can be rented out after I shoot for a designer sometimes

I sell the images to vendors like contractors architects cabinet makers tile makers furniture makers etc

And for the designer they are getting a commission shoot

I'm making sure that the photos are to their

specifications it fits their crops for their website print material Instagram Pinterest, whatever

That they have the hardest-working

Images for their target audience and for their marketing strategy the additional licensees, they're not paying for that

But the images if the images do a good enough job for them

Then they will license it at a much lower cost of course and on top of which are only getting

licensing one or two images rather they're paying rather than paying for

of paying thousands for the whole shoot right it's a win-win and

So what is the value of the image and how much is it worth? You know?

so that

Depends right the value of an image is not the number of hours

It takes to produced image

But rather the influence the image will have a photo that's in my closet of course is worth less than the paper

it's printed on and the same photo if it was on the cover of Time magazine is potentially worth hundreds of thousands and

If I shoot a photo at a wedding of a guest following the to a pool while trying to take a group photo with their

Cell phone it's worth a few laughs

the wedding attendants

But potentially worth a fortune to Apple if they want to use it to advertise their new waterproof iPhone 7 lets say

and I will get paid for the wedding but

exponentially more to license to Apple

Let's say if I shoe for Nike that one photo of Draymond Green dunking will eventually sell 10 million dollars with issues

Let's say and Nike won't care if I charge 100 thousand dollars for that for one year

license of that photo if I shoe for a start-up business, and they will post their photos on their website

But their potential viewers you know

100,000 maybe they only make $50,000 on that right that photo is worth

Maybe less than a thousand

and then you factor in the risk of that startup and their lack of experience and maybe their market presence isn't that great and

Then the photo is the value of the photo of continues to diminish and at a certain point that ROI is?

Less than the actual cost of producing or commissioning the shot and that's when the photographer may not even charge licensing altogether

But yeah, I have another graph to show you all right so if a client stands to make a lot

Then the licensing fee is naturally higher, but at a certain point the ROI

Drops right below the photographer's cost and maybe the business just to start up, and it doesn't have that much

market influence

but you can't sell things without showing photos of what you're selling right so they have to shoot and

Eventually they hope to gain enough market share and eventually get you know up to here

so

Hopefully this explains it better it took me years to understand licensing. There's so much more to learn but

Understanding it is crucial and keeping

Everybody in business so no matter what it has to be a win-win and it's all about a negotiation right whether you're talking about

$25 or half a million dollars sometimes I'd shoe for far less, and I think I'm worth, but ultimately that's a business decision

Employing to create strategic partnerships right it's the long game

My sights on so if I can help another business grow

I will have a client for life, and if your photographer has that mindset then you're golden

This is just kind of the tip of the iceberg and this topic is hard to understand for both clients and

photographers alike and I can give hours of examples and

This talk topic of course has filled out hundreds of books and online forums

So if you have any questions or a point of clarification just post in the comments below, and I will try to address them

Our today we discussed one of my favorite topics

licensing is your photographer trying to rip you off is your photographer is your photographer trying to rip you on I

Think your photographers trying to rip you off gotta take off my jacket do this because we're it's about to get real